Carved
by Owls Shattered and Shrieking
Summary: Chris's identity is learned slightly earlier on by the Halliwells and Leo. More family time for all. AU from 6.10 Criss-Crossed.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I don't even know if people still read Charmed fic anymore. I was just rewatching season 6 and decided I wanted to write a Chris fic because I adored that whole storyline. Anyway, it's another one of those Halliwells-find-out-Chris's-true-identity-in-a-different-way stories. This one is AU from the end of Chris-Crossed.

**Carved**  
>by<br>Owls Shattered and Shrieking

* * *

><p>Wyatt is seeing red. Chris doesn't have to be living behind his brother's eyes to know this.<p>

_Et tu._ And you? The words play over and over in Chris's mind. _Et tu._ And you? And you, Brutus_? And you, Chris?_ Betrayal from the unlikeliest of sources, but Chris has been hearing these words for far longer than Wyatt has. Chris has been hearing them for as long as he's been cognizant that familial grey areas can tread as fast and silent as a jungle cat into the dark.

The dark. Where Wyatt grew like a weed, magic blossoming like a million black flowers through his veins. Where Wyatt was always bigger than Chris, always stronger, and where bigger and stronger didn't hold that ethic, that affection. Big brothers should protect little brothers. It's the way things should be. Mom would always tell Wyatt to look out for Chris.

But.

Chris was never as strong. And Dad never loved him as much.

"You promised you wouldn't hurt him," Bianca says. There's that broken note in her voice, of a girl holding two hands that are pulling her in opposite directions. She's tearing at the seams. Chris doesn't blame her. Not for anything. He's bleeding on the ground, past anger and accusation, splinters of broken table cast off by his limbs.

But Wyatt wanted him turned. Wyatt wanted Bianca to turn him dark, just as Wyatt turned her.

"Chris, please, I didn't bring you here to die," Bianca says, and she's by his side now. She still smells so sweet. And there's that squeak of the floorboard, as Wyatt shifts the weight of his foot onto it, filling Chris with hope. Mom understood. Mom or Aunt Phoebe or Aunt Paige, one of them understood.

_Don't think about them like that_, he immediately scolds himself, as he's been doing for so long now. _Piper. Phoebe. Paige. The Charmed Ones._

"Don't worry," he tells Bianca, and he hopes she won't. "I know what I'm doing."

But he doesn't, apparently, because Wyatt is bigger. Because Wyatt is stronger. Because this Wyatt will always lack big brother ethic.

Chris is thrown across the room. It hurts like a son of a bitch and then he's dragged up by the energy flowing from his brother's fingertips, his feet off the ground, and he's dangling like a rag doll, like a puppet, helpless and bound by his brother's invisible strings.

He sees the energy ball collect, swirling blue and purple and white. An imminent end.

But Chris has Bianca. Bianca who still loves him, Bianca who gets a hold of the situation, her hand pushing through Wyatt's back for approximately three fifths of a second before Wyatt, with all his bigness and strong-ness, turns it right around on her.

And then Bianca is on the ground. Still. Silent.

The strings snap and Chris is dead weight on the floor. He feels liquid running down his face in little trickles, leaving his cheeks damp and sticky.

"I forgave her once," Wyatt says softly. Chris hears the sound of boots, heavy steps coming closer. "I couldn't forgive her again. I can still forgive you, though. You're my brother, Chris. You get chances."

"I don't want any of your stupid chances." He doesn't feel the words leave his mouth. He only hears them, and they sound dead and flat, like the words of a ghost twelve years past. _I don't want to play your stupid game, Wyatt_. Chris's eyes drift to Bianca's body, but he can't make them look at her face. They rest on her leg, her ankle, her foot. Just a limb and an appendage. That's all it is. That's not Bianca. That's not the girl he loved.

Soft goes hard. Wyatt's voice is like stone. "If you would only be smart and _listen_, Chris."

"I am smart. And I don't listen."

Chris is smart. And he doesn't listen. Both of these things are true. He has selective hearing. He finds his own way.

Sometimes he lacks for common sense.

Wyatt's voice is still stone, and smoother still. "Well, then. I suppose I have to teach you to, don't I? It's my duty as your big brother."

"Do you?" Chris asks, waiting for her foot to twitch. Waiting for her to not be dead. "Is it?"

Wyatt kneels down. He smells like cologne and mint and tea leaves. Clean. Polished.

Chris feels his brother's heavy hand on his shoulder, the nails biting into his skin as Wyatt squeezes just a little too hard. "It is," he says, and the squeezing stops. The hand is gone. It's in front of Chris's face now, drawing his attention. "Now listen carefully, Chris."

Wyatt jerks his hand at an angle, the movement sure and precise like he's cutting a slice of meat in a way that denotes he wants it to be aesthetically pleasing on the plate.

Chris feels the sharp cut in his upper right side, his blood warm as it spills, dampening his shirt. He hears his own cry, but it feels caught in his throat. How did it get out when it's still there?

Again, Wyatt slashes his hand. Again, Chris's skin opens and leaks. Again and again and again, and it's just when he thinks that his brother will never stop that he does. Chris doesn't know how many cuts are in him now, but it ends right above his right hip.

"Did you hear?" Wyatt asks, his voice not unkind. Chris doesn't respond. He doesn't know if he can. He wonders if he's bleeding to death.

He feels his brother's hand on his head, petting him patronizingly. "I know you did. I'll be right back, Chris. I have something to attend to. Stay here like a good boy. It's not like you have powers, anyway. Can't go anywhere. Can't do anything." And the hand is gone again. Chris flinches instinctively, but this time, Wyatt leaves with it.

It's just Chris in the attic. Just Chris and his dead fiancée.

_Just a foot_, he tries to tell himself. _It's not her. It's just a foot._

He drags himself along the attic floor, each movement excruciating. He pries the floorboard open, pulls out the piece of paper he knew was there.

His voice is barely a voice as he croaks, "_Powers of witches rise, come to me across the skies, return my magic, give me back, all those taken from the attack_."

He feels the magic rush hot in its return. His body screams as he climbs to his feet. The Book of Shadows remains open and untouched, evidence of the fact that Wyatt's ego overpowers his sense of caution.

"_Hear these words, hear the rhyme, heed the hope within my mind, send me back to where I'll find, what I wish in place and time." _

The portal sparks open. Chris rips the spell out of the book, keeps his eyes averted from Bianca on the floor as he stumbles over and collapses through.

* * *

><p>"Sweetie?"<p>

Mom. Mom's voice.

No, _Piper_. _Piper's_ voice.

"Chris, sweetie, you're going to be okay. Leo's going to heal you."

"There's a lot of wounds." Dad's voice drifts into Chris's consciousness, warm and soothing. He feels like he heard it this way before, once. But that seems like a long time ago. "We have to get the shirt off of him. I have to see them…"

"Chris, honey, it's going to be okay." Aunt Phoebe.

_No, Leo. Leo and Phoebe._

Multiple pairs of hands maneuver him gently from the ground and peel the shirt from his body.

A collective gasp fills the attic.

"Oh my god." Aunt Paige.

_Paige._

"Chris." Anger. Mom's angry. And concerned. "Chris, who did this to you?" He feels cool fingertips on his tear-stained cheeks. "Chris, who?"

His head is dark and full of cotton and he just wants to go to sleep. _Piper_, he reminds himself, relishing in her touch. _Not Mom. Piper._

"Chris," she repeats. "_Who_?"

Leo's power laps over his bleeding side like warm ocean waves. His skin melds back into place, becoming whole again. Chris is vaguely aware that his head is in his mother's lap for the first time in so long, and she's asking him a question that he listened to. That he heard.

_Mom._

He doesn't feel it come out of his mouth, but he hears it.

"Wyatt."

* * *

><p><strong>TBC.<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Holy crap. Wow, so people _do_ still read Charmed fic. Haha. I was totally not expecting that kind of response, but thank you so much for reading, you guys. And for the encouraging words. I'm so happy you're all enjoying it so far, and I hope I don't disappoint you. I will try my best to update with some frequency. Thank you again. *hugs*

**Carved**  
>by<br>Owls Shattered and Shrieking

_Chapter Two _

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><p>He's warm.<p>

His body sinks into the couch cushions, his head into the pillow that is tucked between his neck and the armrest. The blanket covering him from feet to shoulders has the freshly laundered smell of flowers and sunshine, and it's all so comfortable that it's almost enough to override that sting in his side that must be a phantom. Upon awaking, he remembers the moment he feels it. He remembers it all.

So he knows that sting can't be there, because he remembers Leo healing him.

"Chris?" his mother's voice asks. It has that tired note to it that he remembers from being six years old with the flu, her long hair tickling his cheeks as she leaned over him, her cool hand brushing sweaty bangs from his feverish forehead. He knows before opening his eyes that she's been keeping vigil and he can't stop his mind from asking why. What is he to her but a neurotic, demanding Whitelighter who took her husband away?

But he feels her hand, cool and soothing, brushing his hair back from his eyes. His eyes, which he pries open to look into her pale, sleepless face. Just as he suspected.

"M- Piper?" he croaks, clenching his fists under the blanket, sinking his nails into his palms, because he's stupid. He's so stupid to almost let that slip.

_Piper. Phoebe. Paige. Leo._

Those are their names. That's what he calls them.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty," Piper says, a hint of a smile on her lips, relief and amusement in her eyes. "We thought you'd never wake up."

Chris ignores the gentle teasing. He shifts on the couch, his young bones aching as he readies himself before taking the plunge to sit up.

The right side of his body screams. Chris does not.

"A-_ah_," he gasps, and Piper comes at him with gentle hands pushing him back down.

"Did it open back up again?" she murmurs, more to herself than to Chris. "Stay down."

Chris's eyes water from the pain, but he does as he's told. He settles back against the couch, seeing through the blur of liquid to notice for the first time the chair where Piper's been sitting, watching over him, and the bowl of pink water by the leg of said chair. His eyes stop on the bloody rag hanging limply over the brim of the bowl.

"I thought Leo healed me," he hears himself say.

"Well, he did, sweetie." Piper says, and she looks down to consider the bowl of water. "It just keeps coming back. Hang tight for me, okay?"

He jerks his head in a nod and hisses again when he shifts further down into the couch, inwardly cursing stupid evil brothers and the heinous tortures they come up with.

Piper bends down and retrieves the bowl of water and the rag. She disappears into the kitchen.

Chris wonders vaguely how long he's been asleep. He barely remembers stumbling through the portal, and feels the burn of pink on his cheeks at the memory of falling down, of his head in Piper's lap, because she doesn't know him for who he is and he shouldn't act that way towards her. He keeps messing up like that, did it from day one, walking into her bedroom as if he belonged there, as if he had been doing it since he was a scared little kid frightened of thunderstorms.

"So." Piper's back, standing over him again, setting the fresh bowl of water and the clean rag on the chair. She took no time at all, even though she seems strangely apprehensive about having left him for thirty odd seconds, and her hand's back on his forehead checking swiftly for traces of fever. "You and I have some talking to do."

_We do?_ Chris wants to reply, but the words are thick in his throat, stuck in phlegm and nerves. She's going to want answers after the way he left. She's going to need them. Otherwise, how can she trust him? She can't. She can't, anyway, even without the half-truths his mind is racing to come up with at the moment.

"I know you need me to explain."

"I do," Piper says, and she's not looking at him. She's pulling the blanket down from his shoulders to his waist. Chris realizes for the first time that he's wearing a thin, white T-shirt he doesn't remember ever putting on, the right side of which is soaked crimson. His face burns with the comprehension that hands that weren't his put him in this shirt.

Just as hands that aren't his are now attempting to pull it off of him.

"Hey, _hey!_" he protests, weakly pushing Piper's hands away form the soiled fabric. His voice cracks and he inwardly curses his larynx. He's twenty-two and it needs to stop doing that now. "_Piper_."

"_Chris_," Piper returns, in a tone that is half-stern and half-mocking. Her lips twist up in a bemused smile. "I need to clean up your wounds. And you need to deal." She goes for his shirt again. He bats her fingers away. Pulls the shirt down. Clings to the hem in defense.

"Why can't Leo just heal me again?"

"Because he's busy," Piper replies, and puts her hands on her hips. "He'll be back soon, but until then we need to clean it."

Indignation flushes hot through Chris's body. What did he do to deserve being treated like some sort of invalid? Or infant? Or any other sort of incapacitated entity at Piper's disposal?

But Piper's not even looking at him anymore. She's looking at the shirt, cocking her head to the side as if she's trying to come to a decision about it. Chris watches her with wide eyes and a slightly open mouth, first fidgeting, and then not fidgeting, because fidgeting fucking hurts.

And then Piper nods. Decision made. "I'm going to cut it off."

"_What_."

"The shirt. It's ruined, and it's going to hurt too much to pull it off of you, so hold still."

Again, she vanishes into the kitchen, this time to return with a pair of kitchen scissors.

Chris sighs in defeat. He holds still.

The shirt comes off in a few snips, and he tries not to flinch when his mother peels the remaining strips of fabric off his body. She's gentle with the rag, shushing him soothingly when he hisses from the sting of the cuts being handled. She doesn't say anything for what seems like a long time, although Chris feels the deception in the seemingly comfortable silence.

As he should.

"You've been asleep for a day and a half," she finally says, softly. She dabs at a single, leaking cut in the middle of the carnage. "Leo's been healing you whenever they show up again. I mean, it's been slowing down. It was every hour to start with. It's been five now. And they come back more shallow each time. Wasn't obvious at first, clearly, but now…"

Her rambling dissipates into nothingness. He doesn't say anything, doesn't even know if he should.

He doesn't have to, he learns a second later, because Piper fully plans on driving this bus.

"You said you came back to protect Wyatt from evil," she says, her eyes moving from the grotesque half-slaughter of his body to his face. At first they don't settle. They seem to dash over his hair, and his forehead, his cheeks, his chin, his nose – and finally, come to lock rather intimidatingly on his own eyes. "You need to start telling the truth."

Fear grips his insides. It's not time. He can't tell the truth, yet. He doesn't want to face this right now, with his mother here, with Piper here, with his side gaping open, at the mercy of a powerful witch. Because what will she do? What will she do when he comes out with the truth of Wyatt, her child, her precious only child and then it'll be her love for Wyatt battling her compassion for a veritable stranger who has done nothing but cause her grief and Chris doesn't want this right now. Chris wants to retreat inside of himself to that place where he's numb and doesn't see things for what they are. Where he only sees the foot, and not the full-on dead girl, cold and unmoving on the attic floor.

_Don't think of that_, he scolds himself. _That will change._

"Chris," Piper says, and she draws it out in that way she used to when he was seven and stubborn, reaching for cookies still hot on the baking sheet. It's not really his name when she says it this way. It's _I'm warning you, don't._

Chris doesn't.

"I didn't lie. I did come back to save Wyatt from evil."

Piper searches his eyes for a moment, searching for truth that she apparently finds. She nods slowly. "But Wyatt did this to you."

It's not a question.

Chris swallows down something large and unseemly in his throat. He barely remembers saying Wyatt's name and if he could go back a day and a half and have an out-of-body experience, he would look down at that stupid, mangled kid with his head in Piper's lap and kick him in the ribs before he could let that secret slip out. But he can't do that. And now here he is.

Here he is now.

"I…" His voice sticks. He clears his throat. "I came back to save him from the evil that turns him evil. That's not lost to us, yet."

He almost flinches, but she doesn't get mad. She nods, her eyes climbing to some indeterminate point in the room as she contemplates his words. "We figured out this much while you've been asleep. His nursery is all serenitied-out."

Chris snorts, more out of relief than amusement. She believes it. She figured it out for herself.

Piper smiles, though there's sadness in her eyes. "There. That wasn't so bad, was it?" she asks. "You need to start being honest with us, Chris. So we can help you."

_But why should you believe me?_ he wants to throw back at her. _And when you don't, how should I feel?_

"There are things I can't tell you," he says instead, as he's been saying all along. "It could change the future in ways that could make everything even worse."

She doesn't say anything to that. She doesn't say anything for what seems like a very long time, but eventually he feels her fingertips on his maimed side. He feels the question in them. _How could it be worse?_

"How could it be worse?" she asks out loud, and there's a small part of Chris that is already over this trauma, pulsating with the thrill that he is a son who knows his mother well.

But he doesn't have an answer for that question, and she doesn't ask it again. Instead, she moves on to, "I hope change for the worse isn't imminent if I figure it out on my own. Or if someone else tells me by accident."

"There's nobody else that could tell you," Chris replies immediately. "Unless somebody else from the future came back and you didn't tell me."

There's sadness around her mouth and in her eyes. Chris wants to touch her face like he did when he was small enough to use her lap as furniture and tell her no, he doesn't want her to be sad. He remembers that always made her smile.

"I need you to be honest with me," she says again. "With us. Do you think you can do that?"

"I told you, I-"

"I need you to not lie," she clarifies. "When I ask you a question, I need you to not lie to me."

There's a razor edge to her tone, terse and no-nonsense and it scares his voice back into hiding. He nods.

"Good," Piper says, lightly this time. Then she hollers, "_Leo_!"

The response is immediate. Leo showers down to earth in blue and white sparks.

Chris goes rigid.

"Well, looks like somebody's awake," Leo says, when he's standing strong and solid behind Piper's shoulder. His voice sounds like the blanket felt when Chris woke up beneath it. Warm, safe. Chris wonders how the guy does that even to people who loathe him.

Regardless, this doesn't feel right. This feels like a set-up, this whole thing, this talk with the tending of the wounds only to call for Leo to take them away. What are they doing?

_What are they going to do to me?_

"Leo's going to heal you," Piper informs him, as if having heard his thoughts. "And then we're going to show you something."

Chills creep up his spine, up his arms, and he's not sure if it's because of how ominous his mother sounds, or if he should give some credit to how he's very much half-naked in a drafty manor house. Either way, this is happening, and he feels it in his bones that he's about to experience a colossal shift in this whole time-travel ordeal he's embarked upon. He doesn't like this feeling. He feels like he's going to be sick.

"Just hold still, buddy," Leo murmurs, and there they are again, those warm waves of his father's powers lapping over his side, making him whole. Doesn't stop that growing sensation of dread in his stomach. It's seconds later when Leo announces that he's done, when he reaches down for Chris's arm, and helps him to a standing position. Too soon. It's too soon for this quake that's about to shake everything up, all that dormant shit inside of Chris that he's been keeping down. Leo. Mom. Wyatt. Dead feet of dead girls on the attic floor. A future cloaked in murder and debris.

It's too soon.

"After I heal you, the scars come back a minute later," Leo explains, as he leads Chris upstairs with Piper at their heels. "I don't think those are going to go away, Chris, I'm sorry. The bleeding will, eventually, but the scars…"

"It's okay," Chris says, because it is. He doesn't care about scars.

"They…he carved something into you. Words. We didn't see them at first. There was too much blood."

They're in Piper's room now. Chris sees the full-body mirror nestled away in the corner. He doesn't want to look into it, wants to dig his heels into the floor and refuse to go any further, but his feet won't listen to his brain. They plod along next to Leo, docile. Yielding.

And then he sees himself, his pale face, his scruffy chin, his brown hair mussed from sleeping on the couch. There are dark circles under his eyes. They match Piper's. And Leo's. He sees family resemblance in the exhaustion. In the way it doesn't end. In unwanted destiny.

And then Leo's hands are on Chris's hips, and his father is gently turning him to the side, so he can see what he was brought up here to see. What he doesn't want to see. What he never wants to think about again.

Dominance. It's written in all thirteen letters furiously carved into his side. Wyatt is the big brother, and Chris needs to listen to him.

_Now listen carefully, Chris._

Chris doesn't want to listen. He doesn't want to think. He doesn't want to look at Piper's face, or Leo's face, doesn't want to see what they see when he's bare and vulnerable. His place. Wyatt teaching him his place.

_Did you hear?_

Chris doesn't have to hear. He sees. Two words, big and grisly, even though one of them is '_LITTLE.'_

"You're our son," Piper says, her voice so soft, it might well be a ghost. "Aren't you?"

And the other is '_BROTHER_.'


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** It's been a long time, I know. But I saw half of this written on my computer and had the urge to finish up the chapter. For fair warning, there is a smack on the ass, which serves its purpose and won't be repeated because this isn't a kink fic (nothing wrong with kink fics, mind you.) Haha, it also kind of loses its voice halfway through because there was a long time between writings. I will hopefully continue. I guess you can't really trust me since it's been months and months and months since the second chapter and cheers to anyone who actually reads this. That said, here's a present.

* * *

><p><em>I need you to not lie.<em>

Chris tries to keep his eyes on the scars. He'd rather they not stray. When they stray, they find other eyes in the mirror. Leo's eyes. Piper's eyes. Eyes asking that question, over and over again, while already knowing the answer and he's not ready for this. _They're _not ready for this. What are they thinking? He hasn't even been conceived. He isn't a thought or an idea; he has no base, no roots, no nothing.

Chris does not exist.

"Chris," Piper prompts.

Chris knows. Chris remembers what she said. The clarification on honesty. _When I ask you a question, I need you to not lie to me._

But Chris does not exist. Of course he's not their son.

"It's okay, Chris," Leo says, his voice honey warm, his hand sending something akin to an electric shock when it squeezes Chris's shoulder. There's a jolt to the tender nerves in his head. Chris jerks away.

Everything's changed.

No.

Everything's still the same. These two months were just a moment of he-doesn't-know-what. Leo is Dad and Dad sets Chris's blood on fire. He lost it for, like, two seconds there at the end, but it's here again now, now that they're looking at him like he means something. Piper. Not Mom, because she knows now. Because she's looking at him like she usually looks at Wyatt. Like he's Wyatt with Two Heads. And she can't look at him like that, she can't touch him like she used to, or make him feel like he's worth something because then she'll be gone. And Chris will be nothing again.

Dead feet on the attic floor.

_It's not her._

He tries to tell himself that it's not her, that it's changed, but here she is and he sees her face and he can't look away. He can't even just look down at her feet because her eyes are telling him that he's confirmed what she already knew just by standing mute and shirtless with his secrets spilled in scars.

Chris is Wyatt with Two Heads. Chris is his mother's baby, and a mother is a baby's universe until she goes away and then there is Nothing. Chris is Nothing. Chris does not exist, and things that don't exist don't have mothers.

"No," he lies, even though she said she needed him not to. It wasn't need. She doesn't fall down dead at a simple word that lacks truth. Not yet, anyway.

"Chris," she says, her voice firm, her eyes are on his in the mirror.

"_No_," Chris repeats, this time out the back of his throat and through his teeth. A snarl. Chris remembers not too long ago in the distant future, a stray dog with a bloody leg limping in the street. He remembers reaching out with a sure hand, and that same noise that he just made ripping through the dog's mouth. _Get away. Get away from me._

"I think you need to rest," Leo says, in a voice unlike Piper's. It's a suggestion, not an admonishment. Chris wants to give into it, but they know now, so he knows now, even though he knew all along. Leo is Dad and Chris's blood is on fire.

"I'm fine," he snaps.

"You're shaking," Leo counters.

Chris is shaking. He didn't notice it before, but now he glances down at his hand and has to will it to stop.

_Stop_.

_Stop._

It doesn't.

"You should rest," Leo says again, and Chris sees his eyes as they meet Piper's in the mirror. Something transfers in that moment, a kind of silent communication that cuts through the space between them like a knife, cuts right through Chris, leaving his nerves raw and scars open. Blood comes in little drops, seeping through the ragged _T_'s.

"You should lie down on the – oh. Crap." Piper somehow manages to look sad and horrified and not-at-all surprised at the same time. She takes things as they come, always has, and this is just another thing of the endless things that keep on coming. She pulls her eyes away from her son's blood, and Chris sees the resolve in them. She's going to mean whatever she says. Whatever she says is going to happen. "You should," she says again. "You should and you're _going_ to lie down on the bed, Chris. I'm going to clean you up and your dad is going to-"

"Don't. Don't do that." Chris's heart is a drum beat against his ribs. It came out of her mouth so easily. _Your dad_. She takes them as they come, these things, and she accepts them. Even wayward neurotic children from the future who lie and lie and lie.

"Why not?" Piper asks. "He is. We _know, _Chris. If we didn't know before, we definitely know now."

Chris peers down at her, tries to keep his eyes steady on her face, but they dash down to her still-flat stomach and he says, "I'm not in there, yet. So you don't know anything."

Piper doesn't flinch. Her gaze holds steady. "When's your birthday?"

"Why?"

"Why do you think?"

Chris actually _does_ have to think about it for a moment. He irritably bites the inside of his cheek and thinks through the pain. The answer is. Well. "_Ew." _He blurts out, too disgusted to contain the childish indignation. "You're not going to _schedule_ my conception, Piper."

It's her turn to look irritated. "I damn well am, young man. And you're going to get your butt on that bed so we can clean up your wounds, are we clear?"

Chris isn't his mother. He _does_ flinch. It's all he can do not to hang his head and shuffle over to the bed and sit down like a scolded puppy, maybe mumble a "Yes, ma'am," because she hates not being listened to and he knows it and she's a fierce little thing, his mom. Even when she's like this. Even when she's young.

"I can orb out of here, you know," he replies instead, crossing his arms, smearing the blood leaking out of his side with his elbows and the tips of his fingers.

"You shouldn't," Leo cuts in, and Chris snaps his head in his father's direction, notices the lines of discomfort on his face for the first time since they started talking about conception. "You're weak, Chris."

Fury. Blood on fire. No time for reason. "I am _not_ weak."

Leo holds up two innocent hands. "I meant that you've been weakened, buddy. You shouldn't orb with that injury. It'll take the energy right out of you and we don't want you falling off any cliffs or bridges or wherever you end up. Okay?"

"No. Not okay."

He doesn't orb, though. He turns on his heel, tries to walk out the bedroom door with his dignity in tact, but he doesn't quite make it. He feels a small hand catch his elbow, discovers that he is, in fact, weakened. Or maybe just weak, because his mother is much too small to be able to handle him this way when he's grown.

"On the bed, Chris. You're not going anywhere until your side stops splitting open. And even then-"

"Get away from me," Chris snarls, because he's not a puppy. He's a war-torn street dog with the blood to prove it.

Piper and Leo practically gape at him.

They should. They should because Piper's stomach is flat. Because Chris is not a puppy, or a dog. Chris does not exist. He doesn't exist. He's back to this place where he's a non-existent non-thing that doesn't have a mother because mothers are necessary for existence. Chris does not exist and he's not theirs and-

"_Ow_."

It comes out in an unmanly squeak. That's okay in that Chris has never been one to tout his masculinity like Wyatt touts his powers. It's not okay in that the exclamation was caused by his mother's hand _smacking_ him on the ass.

"Piper!" Leo sounds like he can't believe it. He also sounds like he doesn't approve, and for once in the past twenty or so years, Chris finally agrees with him. Chris doesn't approve, either. Chris doesn't approve at all. "Piper, he's _hurt."_

Chris is also still, shocked, his hand rubbing his right buttock. It doesn't hurt that much, not after the initial impact, but he can finally feel the blood seeping out of the carved words in his side, and it's hitting him now, hitting him harder and harder with each passing second that he stands there with his parents staring at him. It's over. The ruse is over and his brother, while still tiny and safe from corruption, has finally laid his lasting mark. Chris is here. Chris is here and this is happening.

He doesn't notice he's crying until his mother wipes his tears away, until his father manages to sit him down on the edge of the bed, and he hears whispers, feels breath against his cheeks.

"I'm so sorry, baby. It was…I reacted."

_Mommy's sorry. _Chris remembers her sounding like this when he was five and wrongfully sent to the corner for a time-out.

"Lay down, kiddo. Let us…" Leo's voice trails off. Maybe it's still there, still in the room, maybe he's still talking but Chris isn't listening anymore. He's numb, allowing hands to push him down on the bed, to tend to his wounds, to heal him. He closes his eyes.

"Mommy's sorry," Piper says, her finger brushing Chris's hair back, and it's real because she takes them as they come, all these things. All these shitty things. Even kids. Even a Wyatt with Two Heads, or a neurotic child from the future who lies and lies and lies.


End file.
